


like a pagan to anyone

by smartlike



Category: Angel: the Series
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-14
Updated: 2013-09-14
Packaged: 2017-12-26 14:30:52
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,959
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/967050
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/smartlike/pseuds/smartlike
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Gunn pushed away from the white wall, turning to look through the thick pane of glass. The girl-- Cordelia, which Gunn thought sounded like a name out of one of those books his sister was always reading, with the Southern belles and pirates on the covers-- was secured to her hospital bed, face paler than saltine crackers under all that hair. She was clearly in some serious pain. Gunn had been real close with pain for a long time, so he figured he was qualified to judge. She shook on the bed and Gunn winced, turning away.</p>
            </blockquote>





	like a pagan to anyone

**Author's Note:**

> Originally written for the Gunn Fic-a-thon, run by Vala with the prompts: "Gunn remembering his sister, lots of angst" and "No fluff. None."
> 
> Beta by k.
> 
> Originally posted at http://www.obsessivetendencies.net/am/

Gunn pushed away from the white wall, turning to look through the thick pane of glass. The girl-- Cordelia, which Gunn thought sounded like a name out of one of those books his sister was always reading, with the Southern belles and pirates on the covers-- was secured to her hospital bed, face paler than saltine crackers under all that hair. She was clearly in some serious pain. Gunn had been real close with pain for a long time, so he figured he was qualified to judge. She shook on the bed and Gunn winced, turning away.

He faced back out into the hallway, that too-clean-to-be healthy scent filling his nose. He leaned again, legs stretched out in front, shoulders straight, looking menacing enough to keep people away, but enough like he fit in so no one asked him any questions. He hoped Angel took care of whatever he needed to take care of and got back here. This job was making his skin itch. He wanted to blame it on hospital chemicals or stray germs flying around, but really, there was something about seeing a girl in pain that brought back things he'd prefer to keep out of his head. Not that he'd really even seen Alonna in pain, of course, but then, wasn't that the worst part?

Gunn sighed and shoved his hands into his pockets. He imagined it sometimes, Alonna cornered by the vamp. She probably screamed-- the girl'd had a set of pipes on her and even in hiding like they mostly were, she managed to shout when she thought something was worth shouting about. Gunn would like to think that the vamp bites didn't hurt, that all that Anne Rice shit was true and they maybe even felt good, but that required buying into the whole romantic vision of vamps and Gunn had never been much of a romantic.

Gunn could hear soft moans and maybe crying coming from the slightly open door behind him, but he didn't turn to look. He crossed his arms over his chest and waited for Angel, doing his best to ignore the pain just on the other side of the wall. He was just helping out. It wasn't his problem this time.

**

Cordelia sat on the ugly round couch thing and tipped her head back. "I want to go out," she whined. "I want to get dressed up and drink cosmos or whatever's trendy this week." There was a pause and then Cordy looked up, eyes wide. "Gunn. I don't even know what's trendy this week. This is not my life."

Gunn bit his lip to hide his smile. "If it makes you feel any better, I didn't know that drinks could be trendy," he said. "I just thought, you know, booze is booze." He watched Cordelia fidget unhappily, a slight pout on her lips and there was a flash of memory. Gunn shook it away.

Cordy shook her head. "Your complete lack of social knowledge doesn't really make me feel better, but thanks for the attempt." She stared out the window and frowned. "Why are you here, anyway?"

Gunn shrugged. "Angel called, I came running." He thought about how that sounded, but didn't bother cringing. It was the truth. It's not like he had anywhere else to be and his truck was starting to smell like flat Mountain Dew and unwashed clothes.

"Well, he's gone now. He thinks I need protection, but I'll be fine if you have things to do with your peeps," Cordelia ignored Gunn's raised eyebrow. "Or whatever." Cordelia licked her lips and tilted her head, waiting for an answer.

Gunn just shrugged again.

Cordy tossed her hair a little and stood up, walking towards the hotel desk. "I mean, okay, I'm no Buffy, but I think we're all aware that I'm not his kid sister, either. I can take care of myself if I have to and it's kind of condescending and completly unfair for him to call you all the way over here just to baby--" She stopped when she realized that Gunn had stood up too.

Gunn felt like he'd been hit by a vamp at full speed and he wanted to punch back, but there was nothing there. Sometimes it seemed like this shit was locked away and for hours at a time Gunn could believe that he'd gone and put Alonna in the part of his brain where he kept his parents and everyone else he'd fucking lost. Except either he hadn't at all or skeleton keys to that box were a dime a dozen, because he kept getting blindsided with unexpected reminders.

"Gunn? Are you okay?" Cordelia approached him slowly, waving a hand in front of his face. "Hello?"

Gunn took a deep breath and clenched his fists. "He just wants to make sure you're okay."

She stared back at him and then blinked. "Oh, the kid sister thing." Gunn flinched and took two steps back. "Sorry, I didn't mean--"

Gunn raised a hand to stop her. He really didn't need to hear whatever blunt and guaranteed-awful thing that was about to come out of Cordy's mouth. "Nah, it's fine. I just--" Gunn could see Alonna, as far from him as Cordy was, taunting and looking nothing and everything like his sister at the same time. He tipped his head to the side as if he could confuse the memories, send them out of his head all mixed up. "Sometimes I forget that I fucked up, you know? And then." Gunn opened his fist, indicating an explosion.

Cordelia was looking just past Gunn's face, as if the disorientation trick that hadn't fooled the picture of a vamped-out Alonna had confused Cordelia. She nodded at something behind him. "Right."

Gunn inhaled and shifted his weight from right foot to left. He waited, but it didn't seem like Cordy was going to say anything else. "Right," he agreed.

**

When Cordelia kissed Gunn, she was drunk. Her lips on his tasted like wine and oranges and her breath seemed warmer than the heavy air floating around them. She laughed into his mouth, a giggle completely open and empty of all the bullshit that people pass back and forth to protect each other from the inside. He laughed, too, tasted strawberries and started to pull away. Everyone was drunk, but he was not doing this. Cordy wasn't someone Gunn kissed, not someone he'd ever thought of kissing, not even once since that day in the hospital. He placed his hands gently on her shoulders and started to push. Cordy was like a little-- And before he let himself finish that thought, Gunn changed the motion of his arms, the muscles seizing at the suddenly conflicting impulse. He kissed back, slipping his tongue past hers, not thinking about who she was or, more importantly, who she wasn't.

It didn't last long, only a few seconds-- definitely under a minute-- until Cordelia slipped out from under his hands. She licked her lips and laughed again, this giggle less solid, no air behind it as she struggled to catch her breath.

"That," she paused and her eyes sparkled through the alcohol haze. "That was probably not a good idea."

Gunn shook his head and blinked, reminding himself that Cordelia's hair was straight, her skin pale and not any of the other features his mind was painting onto her face. Even if he'd never thought of kissing Cordy before, he could, there was no reason he couldn't, she was just a friend, just any girl. Not someone he wouldn't kiss.

"I'm thirsty," she shouted to the kitchen where Wesley was pouring more wine. Cordy giggled again, falling onto Gunn's shoulder.

He adjusted his weight under her and waved away the glass Wes offered when he came back. Gunn didn't think anymore wine was a good idea. He tried to focus on the conversation Wes and Cordy were having, something about a library, but his thoughts kept skipping to places he had strictly forbidden, so he eased out from under Cordelia and excused himself, heading out into the night and resting his head against the steering wheel of his truck until he thought it would be okay to drive.

Gunn drove slowly, careful not to attract any attention, not sure if he could walk a straight line right now. He barely paid attention to the route, but wasn't surprised when he found himself parked in front of an empty warehouse, his tires lodged in familiar grooves in the dirt. Gravesites were a luxury he'd never had, never really wanted. He could picture what it would look like, gray headstones in rows, fading back into the horizon and his brain just multiplied the line over and over like some special effects scene in a movie.

Gunn sat in the truck and stared out, breath coming slower and slower, the scent of the red wine fading away eventually. There was graffiti on the wall in front of him, someone's name scrawled in red that hadn't been there last week. Gunn stared at it until the edges blurred and the paint became a meaningless red scar on the gray brick. Gunn's headlights were the only light and when he flicked them off, the darkness closed around like it had been waiting. Gunn relaxed into it, let himself feel comfortable in a way that he never did in any of the places that he probably should.

He thought of Angel, wandering around in the darkness and tried to reconstruct that chain of events, meeting Angel, losing Alonna. Maybe they were related, maybe one had to happen because of the other. Before all this, Charles Gunn would have told you he didn't believe in that karma shit, didn't believe that there was a guiding force in the universe. Sure, he believed in things other people didn't, but only because he'd seen the vamps. Back then, Gunn believed only in what he could see and he knew that nobody got what they deserved because he saw his friends work the mission every night and go home to abandoned buildings and no food and less people every day.

Gunn sighed and turned his head from the window. Now that he'd seen evidence of the Powers-- Cordy and her visions-- the hows and whys seemed less simple. Not that any of it mattered, because the how and the why of Alonna always came back to the fact that Gunn fucked up and anything else just confused the issue. Everyone else, the Powers and Angel, the gang and Cordy and Wes, they all created a blur that suddenly let him think about other people as if they could ever take her place, like he could ever be forgiven. So he came here and sat in the dark in front of the place where Alonna died, because there Gunn could always see the truth.

He thought about maybe taking his axe and the clothes in his truck and just driving. He figured he could fight the good fight anywhere and he'd always been good at making do with only a little. He pictured it, sleeping in the truck, moving on without any connections and he realized it was something out of a romance, something Alonna may have read to him or made him watch once upon a time or some script Cordelia had run lines from in the hotel. The drifter with a tragic past, a fighter, alone with his demons. But Gunn still wasn't a romantic and he didn't know what he might let himself fall into without this place to tie him to his mistakes, so when the sun pushed its way into the sky, Gunn started the engine and headed back to the office.


End file.
